Online advertising may be an important source of revenue for enterprises engaged in electronic commerce. A number of different types of web page based online advertisements are currently in use, along with various associated distribution requirements, advertising metrics, and pricing mechanisms. Processes associated with technologies such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) enable a web page to be configured to contain a location for inclusion of an advertisement. A page may not only be a web page, but any other electronically created page or document.
The online advertising industry utilizes a pay-per-impression model and a pay-per-click model. An impression is a display of an advertisement to a user. In general, an advertiser is willing to pay for impressions if the aim of the advertising campaign is to increase brand awareness. However, with the growth of sponsored searching, it has been more common to utilize the pay-per-click model as it decreases the risk to small advertisers. An advertiser is more inclined to pay for click-throughs if the goal is to generate traffic which in turn increases the probability of a sale. An advertiser is not assured that each recorded impression results in a user actually viewing the advertisement on the page; however, a click on that advertisement confirms that the advertisement was acknowledged. In the former case, advertisers pay per impression (PPM) while in the latter case they pay per click (PPC). The PPC model also may include a rank-by-revenue mechanism in which ads are sorted by their pay per click multiplied by the measured or estimated click-through-rate (CTR).
However, the PPC model may be subject to a click fraud problem. Click fraud can take place, for example, if an advertiser's employees repeatedly click on a competitor's advertisement link in an attempt to drain the competitor's marketing budget. Also, rogue web site owners who advertise with an advertising provider (such as Yahoo!® or Google®) may maliciously click on their own advertisement links to generate more commissions from that advertisement.
An alternative model is pay-per-conversion or pay-per-action (PPA). The PPA model links payments to actions (such as sales/phone calls/online orders/etc.). An advertiser states his/her willingness to pay for an “action,” which may be any action beyond a click-through. The pay-per-impression and pay-per-click models allow the advertiser provider to record impressions or clicks and request payment based on that measurement. However, a conversion or action in the pay-per-action model is recorded by the advertiser and reported to the advertising provider. Accordingly, the advertising provider must rely on accurate reporting by the advertiser of conversions or actions to charge the advertiser. Therefore, there is a need for an accurate and fair PPA model for reporting actions that result from online advertising.